Our Adventures through marriage, babies, travel, and the expat life.

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015

A Bedtime Story

I have learned that age has nothing to do with the accumulation of years.
Aging is the inevitable defeat of parents by their young.”
– Excerpt from the book Princess Sulatana’s Daughters
by Jean Sasson

My little drooling pooping monsters are in bed and all is quiet in the house, and its only 8:30pm. When I walk down the stairs after the whole repetitive bedtime routine, which includes teeth brushing (he’s really just sucking the toothpaste off), 3 books that rhyme shit, diapers changes, tucking in the blankets , water, tuck again mom it wasn’t good enough, wait more water, please don’t leave, spray for ghosts, and don’t turn the light out, I feel like someone wandering aimlessly out of a battlefield, holding my breath and tiptoeing down the stairs in case my big toe should slap the floor to hard and encourage a kid to ask for a damn cookie or to get out of their bed/prison.

I love those little shits so much, after about an hour, I’ll miss Zane’s chubby face or his fat little toes. Cruze’s smile or the way his sweet little voice says “love you momma!”. The one of them cries. Fuck. Immediately I forget missing them and wonder why they can’t just sleep without apparently dreaming of rabid blue ghost monsters under their beds or unwashed spoiled milk bottles chasing them. ( I can only assume that’s what they dream of.) WHY can’t I get any peace and quiet for two seconds??

Wait, shhh, they are quiet again. Now that these little turds are asleep, I can finally look at all the cute pictures I took of them today. Yeah, that’s mom life. Maybe even eat a bowl of sugary cereal to quench the insatiable hunger that hits me at 9pm on the dot. (crap, we are out of milk.) All I’ve had is coffee and half of his grilled cheese that I’m pretty sure he sucked on. I did make an awesome lunch today for my family but by the time it was ready to eat it, I was so sick of looking at it for 2 hours. Whatever a recipe says, if you have kids, multiple the cook time by 2. That’s how long you will spend with that food before you eat it… or not. Chocolate bar dipped in my 6 time heated up coffee sounds better anyway. Im also pretty sure I hid some gummi worms around here somewhere. Sometimes its 2pm before I give up on microwaving the coffee and just pretend it’s an iced coffee from Starbucks. Ill ignore the fact that the milk in the coffee is from 8am this morning, I’ve eaten worse.

I used to be a mom that put the kids to bed whenever. I didn’t want to schedule them mostly because I don’t want to be run by a tot’s nap and sleep schedule. I want to YOLO! I would be annoyed with moms when they say “Oh I can’t come over before 10am or between the hours of 12:23pm and 1:41pm because little Johnny will be napping.” WTF? “No dinner plans either because Johnny goes to bed at 5:16pm.” I REFUSED to be constrained by someone else’s schedule, especially when that someone is a 2-foot tall babbling wildebeest baby who eats tries to eat his shirt. That sounded like having no life. I would say that is a “structured mom”. I will NEVER be that way…

Little did I know about two weeks ago I would find that a little structure never hurt anyone. Not only do I have time to myself, but I HAVE TIME TO MYSELF! Did you hear that?? Yeah, that’s right, actual naps and bed TIMES can make glorious things happen. I’ve even found myself always looking at the clock, oh its nap time!! The joy leaps from my voice as I say “upstairs kids!” All day I wait for the bedtime. I watch sopranos with my husband, we order doughnut deliveries, we watch the news, and eat candy and popcorn out in the open. Yeah, Adult shit.

So even though I look haggard and tired, I know that dvd is waiting for me. Sure, I have to get up at least 6 times during on episode, but nonetheless, I gleam with pride for I won the battle of my children today.

I have two new gray hairs, a stubbed toe, and play doh in my unwashed hair, but I made it.